National 5 Art

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Anyone with a DC who is studying or has studied national 5 art. What is the workload like? Is it difficult to do well unless you are very talented. Is it more work than other expressive art courses like music and drama? Just asking as my youngest is thinking of choosing it. She has always enjoyed drawing but since she does drama and music outside school I assumed she would choose either of these (music would be an easy pass). Art teacher feedback is that she would do well but I have 2 older DC and am used to teachers trying to persuade kids to choose their subjects. Just wanted other opinions. Her year will be first year school moves from maximum 6 to maximum 8 national 5 in S4.

My DS1 is doing it but he is not very communicative. He did have stuff to catch up on when we were at parents night a month or so ago but teacher seemed surprised that he does none at home. I think his issue is that one unit was all about doing self portraits etc and he isn't very comfortable looking at himself - very self conscious so he he has been lagging on finishing those off. So he has instead being spending time on the other unit by doing very intricate shading... he is the only boy in the class too which probably doesn't help his feelings of discomfort.

he has done his prelim but we don't have the results yet. He is fairly talented according to previous teachers and they can't fault the detail within his work but I really have no clue how he is going to do in it.

My DD is S3 and doing Art. I was surprised at her choice but she absolutely loves it and is doing well. Of the Arts subjects her impression from her peers is that Art has the most academic content. About half her lessons are "history of art". There is also a lot of emphasis on design and creativity rather than just execution. So far the practical workload is not noticeable outside of school hours. Now she has more taught input DD is enjoying experimenting at home and her drawing is improving very very quickly.

So far I am happy DD has made the right choice. She is also doing Graph Comm as her IT subject and this fits very well with Art. I was concerned about overlap but they are actually complementary.

(I thought my DD would be doing music but the level 5 is not really designed for students who are already good instrumentalists and she would have ended up doing an accelerated higher. Neither she nor I were comfortable with this).

Meant to add his other subjects are:

Maths
English
Physics
Computing Science
Engineering Science and
Geography

The art was meant to be a bit of lighter relief for him...

DS wanted to do Graph Comm instead of Geography as it would have fitted better with his Art, Computing and Engineering profile but choices wouldn't allow. He is hoping to get an A in Art and computing and he should be allowed to go go straight into Higher Graph Comm is he wants to do that. A bit of incentive for him.

Also should add that the history of art stuff /the actual exam only counts for 20% of overall mark so portfolio is the main thing.

Thank you both. Your comments have reassured me as I remember reading nightmare stories about workload on mumsnet but it must have been gcse. My DD will love self portraits and art history.